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Monday, April 25, 2016

This isn't something completely outrageous in my part of the Western Hemisphere. Lots of people have animals who live inside their homes, who receive medical care better than 85% of the rest of the world's population. (I totally made that percentage up, but you have to admit that it seems pretty plausible.) This past weekend I was so utterly consumed by the amount of accumulated crap in my house that I went to Ikea and bought outdoor furniture to install in my sons' room. My solution for too much stuff was to go buy DIFFERENT stuff. And this can be lumped right in there with the doggie derm. Not abnormal.

It occurred to me how unique the "Western ideology" is on the world stage. I wished for a moment that I could take the time to read the constitutions or manifestos of other countries; that I could ask a broad cross-section of every other population on earth the following question: What right do you feel you have to happiness?

Because it's written in our National "Who Are We" section that we have been "endowed by our Creator," in what is so obvious a Truth as to be "self-evident," with a certain number of "Rights" chief among those are: "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Now, I've made it no secret that I think the Founding Fathers were a bunch a drunken hypocrites, who would probably have been pretty fun to party with as long as you were a land-owning white man. But what a crock of shit they wrote.

It's a set-up for failure!

I kind of think it's why we're the richest, whiniest, most spoiled brats on the planet. From the very beginning, our helicopter founding daddies told us we were special snowflakes. They told us we have an absolute RIGHT to be happy and unfettered. Rules only apply if we agree with them. And honestly, if we think the Dads currently in charge ever get too bossy, you know...."it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." Huh. The Millennials are the only ones who've actually read the Declaration of Independence, I guess.

Okay, but on the other hand, you also know I'm a hippy dippy Buddhist, if you've ever read other blogs. (There are like 180 of them, but hey - read them or don't.....I'm not the boss of you.) And anyway the Buddha says that all beings are searching for happiness. Even the batshit crazy ones. Even the huge mooches, and the drains on society, and criminals, and the politicians. Ha! That's all a description of the same person....but I digress.

Every living thing wants to be happy and that's the root cause of all our actions, whether or not they're correct actions. When we look at other people and we don't understand them, it's really just that we're not recognizing the recipe they're using to create happiness. But if you've ever eaten "chili" or "pasta sauce" or "pizza" or a "sandwich" then you know that those single words don't really describe the details of what you'd be eating. Are we talking chicken chili? Vegetarian chili? Three-alarm chili? And does the sandwich have meat on it, or is a PB&J? The possibilities are endless - but the guacamole is always an extra charge, okay?

So maybe the drunk Founding Fathers weren't quite so in the bag that they got it completely wrong. And someone needs to make sure they weren't closet Buddhists, because what they wrote would indicate a keen understanding of human nature; well, white-landed-male nature, at any rate. We should probably work on expanding those words to include more people and finally finish what their society couldn't: that ALL people are endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if their recipe for happiness includes anchovies on a pizza. Gross.

The brown people, the white people, the dark eyes, the light eyes, the curly hair, the straight hair....the redheads. It doesn't matter. Each has been endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. And you know what? That's why my dog has a dermatologist.